The agricultural sector impacts everyone, every day. Everyone eats. Everyone uses the fiber and fuel produced by the agriculture sector. Food defines our culture, our traditions, our likes and dislikes. As consumers, we are concerned about the safety, quality, availability, and cost of food. As a community, we worry about malnutrition on one hand, and obesity on the other. We expect companies to ensure that the food we buy meets our needs and wants.
However, we seldom think about the 500 million farmers that grow our food. The majority of these farmers are smallholders, owning less than 2 hectares of land—the size of two football fields. In Asia alone we have more than 350 million smallholders. Together, they provide livelihoods and support for 2.5 billion people, more than a third of the world. While often going hungry themselves, farmers produce commodities we take for granted—from rice to coffee, corn to palm oil. We expect them to produce sufficient quantities to feed us all, we expect them to ensure that land and water are used effectively and that forests and other eco-systems are protected—while they are unsure of their own futures and live below the poverty line.
With continued global population growth driving increased consumer demand, alongside changing lifestyles and a lack of reliable crop and commodity supply chains, attention is now shifting to how food is produced and who produces it. The newly agreed upon Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to eradicate poverty and hunger by 2030, alongside concerns related to climate change and environmental sustainability, mean that a focus on the farmer is inevitable.
To address challenges that face the farmer—which include low productivity and incomes as well as a lack of access to healthcare, education, and other opportunities—multiple players must work in tandem. Until recently, working with farmers and rural economies was a focus for NGOs, donors, and governments. Now, there is a move to engage more companies across value chains to ensure farmers are linked to formal markets: both to buy inputs and sell their produce. This in turn enables farmers to access knowledge, technology, information, finance, and markets, resulting in increased production through better products and practices, increased income through access to credit and insurance, and an increased ability to sell higher quality products, in larger quantities, to formal markets.
Creating a system that supports farmers, raising them out of poverty whilst enabling global food security, requires a concerted effort: a systematic change. Experience has shown that bringing all stakeholders together and driving such change requires an honest broker. As a result, partnership platforms are being created. Grow Asia is one such platform.
Catalyzed by the World Economic Forum, Grow Asia is a multi-stakeholder action platform that convenes governments, companies, donors, farmer organizations, and others to co-create value chain partnerships focused on smallholder farmers and environmental sustainability in Southeast Asia. The aim is to reach 10 million smallholder farmers by 2020, enabling them to be 20 percent more profitable, productive, and environmentally sustainable.
Grow Asia currently supports partnerships in Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, and Vietnam. Collectively, the country partnerships facilitate 26 value chain projects, on crops such as rice, corn, palm oil, coffee, and tea, reaching almost half a million farmers. Grow Asia and the Country Partnerships work with 194 partner organizations.
Company partners invest in value chain projects based on their long-term need and potential. Input companies develop businesses with farmers by introducing products and technologies to new users, raising farmers’ agronomy knowledge and linking them to credit. For the off-taker companies, such efforts help secure the supply of commodities they procure. For many crops, current supply is falling due to decreasing yields, lack of farmer knowledge, or migration of farmers to urban centers due to low commodity prices and increasing costs of living. For ancillary services such as financial services and mobile technology, farmers are an untapped and risky market. Working with partners from the value chain can reduce their risk and enable access to new users and clients.
Partners play complementary roles in these projects, building on their own competencies and interests. Input companies provide training and access to inputs like seeds, fertilizers, and crop protection products. NGOs provide training and capacity building for farmers, as well as support for the certification and traceability of produce. Farmer organizations enable expansion of reach, as well as the empowerment of farmers through collective bargaining. Donors can provide additional funding support and guarantees. Off-takers commit to buying the products that meet their quality requirements, which in turn can stand as a guarantee for loans. Finally, governments provide support at a policy level as well as investment in infrastructure and capacity building.
The Grow Asia Partnership for Agriculture in Vietnam is one successful example of the effectiveness of multi-stakeholder platforms. The country partnership’s coffee project was launched in 2010, convening a wide range of different stakeholders, including companies like Nestle, Syngenta, and Yara; NGOs like IDH, Rainforest Alliance, and 4C; the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and associated government agencies; and research agencies like WASI and IPSARD. Stakeholders came together to address concerns around declining coffee supply, the need to improve productivity through re-planting old trees and introducing new varieties of coffee, and the need to reduce fertilizer and water usage in production. Actions and results included:
- The operation of 75 demonstration plots in four provinces
- The delivery 10,200 days of training through 280 farmer field schools and the introduction of new, higher-yielding coffee varieties
- An increase in smallholder farmer yields by 21 percent and in net income from coffee by 14 percent
- Reduced water footprint by 30 percent per irrigated plant
- More targeted fertilizer usage resulting in a reduction in fertilizer use by 18-23 percent and in carbon emissions by 63 percent
This is just the start for Grow Asia. Now there is a need to scale-up both the reach and the impact of current projects. This requires involving more partners, increasing investment, replicating successful models, and developing new and innovative solutions. This is only possible through more collaboration, the sharing of experience and risks, co-evolving solutions, and committing for the long term. Our ambition is to address the full system and create meaningful change for food security, rural development, and environmental sustainability. For this, we need everyone to play their part.